From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: I voted
Date: Tue,  8 Nov 2016 23:31:18 -0500 (EST)
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

It went smoothly for me this morning, except for an hour-long line.
At least the line was entirely indoors.

Before today, it was anything but smooth:

1980:  I attempted to register for my first-ever election, only to
learn that my guilty plea three years earlier to a crime I didn't
commit, which was supposed to "take responsibility," "put this behind
you," and "move on with life" had done pretty much the exact opposite.

1980s:  I continued to think that what was happening with the criminal
justice system in Arlington was an aberration, and that any day now
the massive scandal would be revealed, and that I and hundreds of
others would get an apology, an exoneration, and maybe some money to
compensate us.

Over the course of the 1980s and 1990s, I gradually came to realize
it wasn't just Arlington, wasn't just Virginia, wasn't just the '70s,
wasn't just the criminal justice system, but that most of what I had
been taught in civics class was lies, and that government was nothing
but an enormous criminal gang, ruling through trickery and coercion.

In the 1990s, a trickle of DNA exonerations became a flood, despite
the fact that the vast majority of cases, including mine, had no DNA
evidence.  Since there's no reason to think the error rate in those
cases was any less, that implied that probably somewhere between a
third and two thirds of all "felons" who hadn't been literally caught
in the act were innocent.  When this revelation didn't lead to any
meaningful reforms or mass expungements, that confirmed my ideas about
government.

In the 2000s, despite having a perfectly clean record since (and
before) my 1977 wrongful conviction, more and more restrictions were
put on me and all other "felons," and jobs became harder to get.
For instance I was able to travel to Canada for the 1994 and 2003
Worldcons, but would not have been allowed in for the 2009 Worldcon.

In 2004, an old friend of mine was falsely convicted of a sex crime
that never happened.  He remains in federal prison today, 12 years
later, with no end in sight.  (Details on request.)

In April of this year, Governor McAuliffe unexpectedly restored my
voting rights, along with that of the 200,000 (!) other Virginia
"felons" who had completed their sentences.  It was immediately
denounced by Republicans as a ploy to get votes for Clinton.  They may
be correct, nevertheless it was the right thing to do.  It would be
just as accurate to say that the Republicans were disenfranchising
felons, and more recently all those without a current government-
issued picture ID, was a ploy to suppress votes for Clinton.

(I plan to write him to thank him, and to ask him to give an absolute
pardon to me and to everyone else who had completed their sentences
more than ten years ago, as such people are certainly either innocent
or reformed.  Voting rights are only a first step.)

In July, the Republicans went to court and got the rights taken away
again with a false claim that the governor was only allowed to restore
rights one at a time, not en masse.

In August, the governor restored them again.

I got a letter from the governor dated September 2nd confirming that
my voting rights were restored.

I registered to vote on October 1st.

I got a letter dated October 14th confirming that I was registered.

I got a letter dated October 25th saying that my registration had been
revoked because I'm a felon.  I phoned the Washington Post, but they
didn't seem interested.

I got a letter dated November 1st identical to the October 14th
letter, with no explanation or apology for the October 25th letter.

This morning, for the first time in my life, I voted.  I did not vote
for any Republican or for any Democrat, and I doubt I ever will.

I feel somewhat guilty about voting, as it goes against my moral
principle of never treating the government as legitimate, and never
asking anything of it except to be left alone.  I did it because of
the old trope that if you're allowed to vote but don't, you lose your
moral right to complain.  And because one party was trying so hard to
keep me from voting.

The surprising popularity of two very different very non-mainstream
candidates (Trump and Sanders) is proof that about half of Americans
realize that our country is on the wrong track.  I don't agree that
either of those men would be an improvement, but at least they
recognize that there's a problem.  Clinton does not.